Re: Other Spy Agencies

[Mats Bergstrom <matsb@sos.sll.se>]

On Fri, 11 Mar 1994, Greg - Kucharo wrote:

>  "Im in for triple murder,how about you? I got 40 years for telling the Swedes
> about RSA so don't screw with me pal!Crypto huh,your one sick con."

There has still been zero in the Swedish public media about Clipper. I 
have introduced the subject in the national Fido echo about datacomm, 
including the unconfirmed information that .se (together with .uk) is
one of the first external countries to apply for a KF. (Swedish Fidonet 
sysops seem to long for CALLER-ID, which has been postponed here for 
 reasons of privacy, to keep track of their users. Wouldn't this also be 
beneficial for traffic analysis?) Cryptology in Sweden is probably 
centerer to the Forsvarets Radioanstalt ('Radio Agency of the Defense') 
which is as secretive about it's methods as any letter agency. Not until 
recently did it become known that they compromised the German G-printer 
during WWII. The teleprinter lines between occupied Norway and Denmark 
went through Sweden and the traffic was encrypted with this Enigma-like 
machine (I don't know exactly but it had about ten wheels that had to
match in adjustment plus an extra level consisting of cables from the 
wheelhouse that could be set differently to twist the output). The crack 
was done all by himself by one legendary genius called Beurling using 
only pencil and paper. It took him two weeks from the day they picked him 
up at the university (mathematician of course). After the war he took the 
former seat of Einstein at the Princeton University but fell into 
obscurity (allegedly he had serious personal problems). Regardless of 
being neutral the Swedish Defence has cooperated with USA in covering the 
Russian's radio traffic from the 40's until now. I'm sure they got 
something back (more than RSA which is in the public domain). At the 
moment I have some probes out to laywers to establish the status of the 
Swedish cryptology laws (if any). A curiosity: The electromagnetic 
spectrum is considered free here, contrary to most European countries, 
meaning for example that pirate decoders for TV sattelite transmissions 
are legal. This will probably change when Sweden, unfortunately, soon 
enters the European Community.


//mb